Jan 4 (Reuters) - Egypt's two main state banks raised the yield on their one-year local currency certificates of deposit (CDs) on Thursday, heralding an imminent currency devaluation and a likely rise in the central bank's main interest rate, bankers said.
Banque Misr announced the higher yield on its Facebook page. Bankers said the National Bank of Egypt had also raised its yields on CDs.
The yield hike comes as hundreds of billions of Egyptian pounds worth of CDs issued by the banks a year ago begin maturing.
"The widely anticipated move, in our view, will likely be followed by a similar hike in overnight central bank interest rates and a shift in the official exchange rate policy very soon," said Allen Sandeep of Naeem Brokerage.
"The timing of the new CDs coincides with the maturity of more than 500 billion Egyptian pounds ($16.3 billion) worth of 25% interest-yielding CDs that were issued last year."
Egypt has kept its currency fixed at about 30.85 Egyptian pounds to the dollar since March while it has fallen on the black market in recent weeks to as low as 52 pounds to the dollar.
($1 = 30.7500 Egyptian pounds) (Reporting by Patrick Werr; Editing by Jan Harvey and Gareth Jones)
